Setup for Keyboarding

Basic Setup

In order to integrate foreign scripts into your computer, you must set up "keyboard" or input
utilities in your operating system. These utilities will allow you to switch between typing English and other languages in word processors and Web tools. This process will also make sure the
correct fonts are installed and available on your operating system.

Web Development

Malayalam Encoding and Language Tags

These are the codes which allow browsers and screen readers to process data as the appropriate language. All letters in codes are lower case.

Encoding: utf-8(Unicode)

Language Code: ml (Malayalam)

Using Encoding and Language Codes

Computers process text by assuming a certain encoding or a system of matching electronic data with visual text characters. Whenever you develop a Web site you need to make sure the proper encoding is specified in the header tags; otherwise the browser may default to U.S. settings and not display the text properly.

To declare an encoding, insert or inspect the following meta-tag at the top of your HTML file, then replace "???" with one of the encoding codes listed above. If you are not sure, use utf-8 as the encoding.

Declare Unicode in XHTML

No Encoding Declared

If no encoding is declared, then the browser uses the default setting, which
in the U.S. is typically Latin-1. Some display errors may occur.

Language Tags

Language tags are also suggested so that search engines and screen readers parse the language of a page. These are metadata tags which indicate the language of a page, not devices to trigger translation. Visit the Language Tag page to view information on where to insert it.

Unicode Chart with HTML Entity Codes

Unless a third party keyboard which supports Unicode is installed, you must use
the Unicode chart for Malayalam and enter HTML entity codes.